New Ways of Searching
What’s the most popular search term of all, I hear you ask? Is it “free stuff”, “ringtones”, “hotels”, “jobs”, or “jokes”? Surprisingly, none of these keywords appear in the top 50 searched-for terms on the Internet.
No, people instead prefer to search for things you’d thing they’d found already. Nielsen/NetRatings (PDF file) released a study of the most popular searches in November 2005, and came up with some interesting results.
“ebay” received just under 14 million searches, closely followed by “google”, with just over 13 million. “yahoo” clocked 8 million searches, and “yahoo.com” was searched for 6.5 million times. Other entries included “ask jeeves” (3.4 million), “msn” (3.2 million), and “ebay.com” (3.1 million searches).
Hold on. Why would anyone search for “ebay.com”? Just put a “www.” before that and you’re there! And why search for “google”, “yahoo” or “msn”? Don’t they know how to use this Internet?
No, there’s something afoot here. People can’t really be searching for the ebay website. Something else is going on.
People are using search engines in new ways – to get quickly to the websites they want. Think about it. If your homepage is Google or Yahoo, typing in “rte” should bring up www.rte.ie ad the first result. You click on it. It brings you to the RTE site without you having to go to the trouble of entering “www.” and “.ie”. Simple!
And the rise of the Google Toolbar means that you can perform a search with one click, regardless of what corner of the Internet you’re exploring.
Also, the rise (and fall and stabilisation at a mediocre takeup level) of WAP and the emergence of i-mode (which really is excellent for checking the latest scores, getting the news, booking a flight and all that) have changed the way we search. A default option on i-mode is to “Search Google”. Entering a www.domain.com address on a mobile phone is much harder than just searching “domain” on Google.
So what does this mean? Has the address bar met its end? Does anyone go to the bother of typing in the full domain name anymore? Well, I use the address bar to find sites I know, but this latest research highlights how crucial search engines have become to the online experience.
August 18th, 2006 at 2:38 pm
is it right to do this, or should i be executed for messing with marketers heads?
August 18th, 2006 at 2:53 pm
The Google toolbar is a saviour, I’d be lost without it. Firefox and the toolbar save me so much time.
August 18th, 2006 at 3:02 pm
I just searched Google for “Elvis riding Shergar while supping from the Holy Grail” and they found him living in Atlantis… (Actually it found Linas adult video feature film list)… Much more entertaining!
August 18th, 2006 at 4:02 pm
And here I was wondering why so many people are searching Google for our domain name! I was thinking, “are these people stupid?” Just found my answer, cheers lol
August 18th, 2006 at 4:58 pm
Woo-hoo, the latest bite-sized morsel of online marketing knowledge, and just in time too! Heading to Slattery’s, might see you there?
August 18th, 2006 at 5:35 pm
On the flipside, a more intelligent address bar (where you just type in “yahoo” and it takes you to www.yahoo.com) would be a help. All this www. and .com is too technical for me!
August 21st, 2006 at 3:30 pm
We’re all getting more sophisticated too. Many of us don’t just search for “property ireland” anymore: http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum97/598.htm is an interesting read on this subject.
August 22nd, 2006 at 9:24 am
I never use the address bar! I just type in “daft” in google toolbar to go to daft.ie, it’s the first result. Thought i was the great innovator!
August 23rd, 2006 at 10:34 am
I’m downloading that toolbar NOW!
August 24th, 2006 at 9:28 am
Nice article, don’t agree 100% but the Google Toolbar definitely had an impact on search habits.